


aestriaan through quiet halls

by philthestone



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: New Republic Era - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, and then they move to Yavin, anyway this is fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-24
Updated: 2015-10-24
Packaged: 2018-04-27 22:30:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5066986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/philthestone/pseuds/philthestone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When she slips in, still in her councilbeing’s robes, she finds her husband on his back on the floor of their room, balancing their three-year-old son on his knees and cooing.</p><p>Anakin is giggling loudly, trying grab at Han’s nose with his chubby fingers. He looks up when Leia comes in, crying out with delight and waving his hands in the air.</p><p>“Mommy! Mommy’s back!”</p>
            </blockquote>





	aestriaan through quiet halls

**Author's Note:**

> Some buildup (also mentioned in "those brave young knights in muddied armor") to the fam's move to Yavin IV. I don't personally think any of them would like Coruscant, much. It's too claustrophobic (and comes along with too much bureaucracy and bad experiences) for Han; it has too many rules and regulations and formal grievances for the kids, who feel the masked discomfort in their parents and capitalize on those feelings; and Leia, who had always been wary of Coruscant and its Imperial Center, of the lies and sneakiness and danger hidden underneath the bustle and pomp and upper-level snobbery, feels stifled. She's spent so many years being a penniless rebel that she finds it absurdly difficult to slip back into the shoes that let her pretend that It's Fine when dealing with Coruscant in general.
> 
> Also, "aestriaan" means peace in my bits-and-pieces version of Alderaani.
> 
> Anyway, just a wee ficclet that I should have posted a million years ago.
> 
> Reviews are those soft teeny lil bunnies that look like tribbles when they duck their heads

It’s surprisingly, blissfully, ( _unnervingly_ ) quiet in the apartment when she slips through the door, dropping her bag onto the floor and shrugging off her overcoat. The regulated temperature controls on Coruscant have been keeping everything cooler than usual for the past week, and for Leia, who on occasion so longs for the cool, crisp air of the Antibes mountains, it is welcome, if not the same.

(It’s never the same – never will be – but it’s better than all the heat.)

She ducks through the kitchen and pads down the hallway, glancing out of the big transparisteel pane opposite the cluttered dining table; it's covered, haphazard, with coloured styluses and Han’s paperwork and three dirty dishes and Jaina’s toys, and Leia sighs just a little. The apartment is lavish; very different from the palaces she used to live in, but also drastically so from the broken down, unfurnished, often dirty Rebel Bases she – _they_ – spent so long in.

It’s odd. They’ve lived here, in this apartment which is just across the skylane from the one that used to be her Very Own at the tender age of seventeen and is now Luke’s (even though even _he_ doesn’t live here anymore), because it wasn’t as if she ( _they_ ) couldn’t live with her brother all her life and they needed a bigger one anyway – it’s _odd,_ because they’ve lived in the apartment, with its huge, transparisteel window and rich red carpet and cream coloured walls and squishy, overstuffed couches for almost as long as they’ve been on Coruscant, and yet …

And yet, Leia thinks privately ( _privately_ even though Han has frequently looked perturbed by the number of credits spent on the table, or the amount of embroidery on the drapes, or the fact that the couches were supposedly imported from Chandrila and yet were there for the express purpose of three rambunctious children jumping all over them), she much prefers the worn, cracked seating in the Falcon’s lounge, or the wooden floorboards of Luke’s small house on Yavin IV. There’s something about it, wandering through the high-ceilinged hallway past the two empty bedrooms (one for the children, one for guests – and two, down at that other end, for nothing in particular) that isn’t quite _home_ , and as much as Leia sings the oft-repeated cliché of _home is where the heart is_ in her stressed, overtired brain, there is something about the vastness and superfluous nature of this damned apartment that puts her more on edge than she’d like.

(She has to explain, patiently, to Han, why someone would gift a crystal figurine of a flock of nerfs as a baby present – because, yes, the baby never will use it, but people like to show –

What? That they have the credits to spend unnecessarily when there are still, still so many out there in desperate need?

Leia does not think, no matter her own feelings on the subject, that she can ever explain this fully to her husband.)

She hears the soft noises coming from the bedroom from halfway down the hallway and feels a small measure of relief - so many years gone by and that niggling, irrational fear has still not left her in peace - when she slips in, still in her councilbeing’s robes, to find said husband on his back on the floor of their room, balancing their three-year-old son on his knees and cooing.

Anakin is giggling loudly, trying grab at Han’s nose with his chubby fingers. He looks up when Leia comes in, crying out with delight and waving his hands in the air.

“Mommy! Mommy’s back!”

Leia leans over all the way down to the floor and plants one kiss on Nik’s nose and one on Han’s mouth, and then makes her way to the ‘fresher.

“Where are the twins?”

“Luke’s gottem,” Han calls from the bedroom as Leia tugs the pins from her braids in front of the mirror. “He took ‘em for ice cream sandwiches at Dex’s.”

“Will they be able to eat dinner?” She slips her robe over her head picture’s Jaina and Jacen’s faces smeared with chocolate sauce. Luke’s affinity for spoiling his niece and nephews is unsurpassed, Leia thinks, and remembers too how much the three of them adore their Uncle and how excited Jaina always gets when they go to Dex’s. (“It’s _so_ cool, Mommy,” she’s told her in the past, eager five-year-old face alight with enthusiasm. “He’s got holos of all these old fighter ships on all the walls!” “And _four_ arms!” had been added by Jasa, bouncing on the battered couch with glee.)

Leia pads back into the room, rummaging through one of the drawers for a shirt. She glances back down with a raised eyebrow, anticipating a reply; Han tries shrugging against the floor, which doesn’t exactly work and just makes him look like his shoulders are spasming. Nik giggles loudly again, letting out a delighted noise as Han twists his feet around Nik’s ankles and lifts his legs up vertically.

“Look, Mama, I’m flying!”

“Watch his head,” Leia cautions, but her lips twitch fondly nonetheless. Han’s grin is entirely carefree, his eyebrows waggling at Nik’s laughing, pink face as he lifts his legs up and down repeatedly. She listens to Nik’s surprised shrieks each time he’s brought back down abruptly, his exclamations of, “There’s peoples dancing ‘n my tummy, Daddy!” something that will never fail to make her smile no matter how many times Han plays this game with him.

She plops down on the bed and starts fastening the buttons on her shirt, rolling her eyes when Han lets Nik drop cleanly into his outstretched arms and raises his eyebrows at her with interest.

“Eyes to yourself, flyboy.”

“I didn’t say anything,” he says casually, and then grins at Nik, setting him down on his abdomen. “Watch out, Nikki,” he says, his voice suddenly very serious.

Nik looks at him with wide eyes, breathless from his earlier yelling.

“What?”

Leia lays back down on the bed and curls onto her side, listening to Han make funny growling noises from the floor.

“Bad Guy’s are comin’!”

“Bad Guys!” cries Nik delightedly, and Han tugs him down and rolls him over, tickling his exposed midriff.

“Gotcha!”

“Daddy! Not the tickle monster!”

Leia smiles into the soft, quilted pattern covering their bed. She’s still tired, still feeling out of place, but very much less so. She stretches her legs out and extends her arm over the mattress just as there’s a suddenly shuffling and a small figure scrambles over the edge of the bed, bouncing towards her.

“Mommy!” Nik rolls over to where Leia’s lying and clambers onto her back, laying down on top of her and giving her his version of an enthusiastic hug. “I missed you!”

“I missed you too, baby,” she says, looking over at him and freeing her arm from under her to poke him in the nose. He scrunches up his face, and decides to respond by pressing his soft cheek against her forehead.

“He escaped my clutches,” Han’s voice offers in explanation from her other side, and Leia cracks open an eye to see him smiling down at them, lopsided. His hair is sticking up at the side and only now she’s realizing that his shirt might be buttoned wrong and his eyes are shining, and she suddenly loves him so very, very much.

“I can see that.”

“Daddy’s a _lousy_ monster,” Anakin says, triumphant, against Leia’s hair, and she laughs out loud.

“He’s a better cuddler, right?”

“Right,” Nik confirms, squirming against her. “But you’re a good cuddl’r too, Mama.”

“Alright,” Han mutters, extracting Anakin from on top of her and lifting him into the air. “You need to get dressed for supper, buddy.”

“But I am dressed,” declares Nik against Han’s shoulder, and Leia catches Han’s good-natured look of exasperation before he heads towards the door.

“Underwear isn’t being dressed, kiddo.”

“But I don’t like shirts’n stuff.”

“We can put on the cool one with the starships on it?”

“Shirts’re _yucky_ , Daddy.”

“C’mon, Nikki,” she hears Han say from in the hallway. “Mommy doesn’t let _me_ run around in my underwear either. It’s just a thing.”

 _“Yuck_ ,” Nik repeats, loudly, and Leia chuckles into the quilt again, twisting back over onto her stomach as Han’s voice calls out from the other room that the twins should be home in a half hour and do they want takeout, or should he help Threepio make dinner?

“Takeout,” Leia calls back, breathing against the soft bedding. She starts when something brushes against her ear, and she about to look up when Han’s lips press gently against her temple and his hand settles on her back.

“Hey, sweetheart.”

“Hey yourself,” she replies, softly.

“Long day?”

She turns her face towards him. “I don’t know. Probably?”

He laughs, fingers pressing against her shirt. “Probably?”

“It’s fine. I’m just a little tired. Is Nik dressed?”

Han makes a face. “Probably.”

She grins, reaching out with her foot to poke his thigh. “Go get him dressed. I’ll be fine.”

“Are you –”

“Shh,” she says, sitting up. He’s leaning against the edge of their big bed, one hand splayed against the covers, and she reaches up and brushes aside his messy bangs. Her doubts about the hominess of home can be discussed later, and he’ll probably agree with her anyway but maybe she doesn’t want to deal with the pressure of making a decision just now, and just spend an evening at home instead, reading with the kids and eating takeout from the one Mon Cal place on the upper level, the one that does excellent seafood. “Later, I promise.”

His eyes soften and he leans over and kisses her gently.

“Got it.”

“I’ll be out in a sec. Just go straighten out your shirt.”

“Got it,” he says again, moving back towards the door.

“And make sure Nik gets dressed!”

“Got it!” is called from in the hallway, and Leia grins, slipping off from the edge of the bed and landing on the floor, heading in the direction of the closet.

She herself still needs to put on pants, after all, and it would be terribly unfair to Nik if _all_ of them weren’t subject to the Clothing Must Be Worn At Dinner Rule.


End file.
